Hey Reader!

In the 17th edition of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for Air Fryer Cheesy Garlic Breadsticks and Fruity Pebble Protein Mini-Cheesecakes!
• In 1936, this well-known candy was shipped to soldiers overseas (can you guess it?)...
• Why your sleep might suck (and the 15 cheat codes to getting sleep that will leave you feeling refreshed every morning)...
• My favorite on-the-go breakfast (and how it prevents me from overeating)...

Preheat your ovens…

Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

Air Fryer Cheesy Garlic Breadsticks Sometimes I'm craving some Cheesy Garlic Breadsticks BUT I don't feel like preheating the oven. So I make them in my Air Fryer instead! Macros for All 12 Cheesy Garlic Breadsticks: ​397 Cals, 43g Carbs, 9g Fat, 65g Protein All that for less than 400 calories with 65g protein is wild! Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​Air Fryer Cheesy Garlic Breadsticks.pdf​

Fruity Pebble Protein Mini-Cheesecakes Same can be said about some Protein Mini Cheesecakes! Just make the batter and pop them into the air fryer! Macros for each Protein Cheesecake:​ 51 Cals, 4g Carbs, 0.5g Fat, 8g Protein And tbh, these are best made in the air fryer. Still figuring out the best oven protocol for these. Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​Fruity Pebble Protein Mini Cheesecakes.pdf​

Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

These Buffalo Chicken Chalupas have become a recipe I get tagged in recreations daily.

Highly recommend giving them a try!

Zach's Beats 🎧

A great mix that I love bumping to whenever I'm out and about. ​Golden Hour Volume: 4 - VYCE BLOOM​

Weird Food Fact 🤓

“I melt in your mouth baby, not in your hand.”

If you don't what song that is from, you are too young for me lol.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936), soldiers would eat these pieces of chocolate that were encased in a hard sugary coating.

Any guesses yet which candy they were?

This coating effectively prevented the chocolate from melting, which was a significant advantage in the warm climate and under the rigors of military operations.

The idea was simple yet revolutionary: to create a chocolate that soldiers could carry without worrying about it turning into a gooey mess.

Forrest Mars, Sr. (aka the same guy who created the Mars Brand) observed this and decided to make a new candy that he’d supply the US soldiers with during WW2 (1941).

This was the birth of M&M’s.

Packaged in cardboard tubes to prevent them from breaking, these candies were shipped off to the war zones.

Their durability and ease of transport made M&Ms an essential component of American soldiers’ rations.

The military-exclusive distribution of M&Ms during World War II significantly boosted their popularity.

Soldiers who enjoyed the candies during the war sought them out when they returned home, leading to widespread consumer demand.

Pretty wild story!

One FAQ ❓

Question from Cass (from Ft. Lauderdale, FL) - “My sleep sucks. I just don’t know if it’s hurting my progress. So my question is, how does sleep impact fitness and nutritional goals? And if so what strategies can help improve sleep quality?”

Answer: Sleep is quite literally the definition of a game changer.

There are very few things that you can do that will give you more benefit than improving your sleep.

Think of the last time you got 4-5 hours of sleep.

You were probably:

• Irritable
• Less patient
• Low energy
• More hungry
• Less creative
• Focus was shit
• Workout sucked
• Much more negative than normal

The day ahead wasn’t a gift. You were merely surviving the day.

And you might be thinking:
​“But Zach, I am fine on 5-6 hours of sleep!”

Cool.

Now imagine how superhuman you’d be on 8.

“Fine” is not something I want to normalize in my life nor do I want that for you as well.

I feel like I could write a book on the topic of sleep.

But at the same time, I still am learning and optimizing even more.

So before I begin, if you want me to do a full in-depth guide on this topic, please reply to this email and let me know.

Here’s my incredibly concise answer...

We will (and should) spend almost 1/3rd of our lives sleeping.

It’s a wild reality.

This is going to be a list with limited context to not make this a massively long read.

Think of this as your optimizing sleep checklist.

1. Pre Bed Routine. 60-90 minutes prior. Gives your body cues that it’s going to bed soon.
2. Cool Temperature. I go 68 degrees F.
3. Love your mattress. You will spend 1/3rd of your life on it.
4. Other people in the bed or pets. You would be surprised how impactful this is. I know it’s not the norm but nowadays is shitty sleep.
5. Horizontal ONLY when you sleep. So your body knows when you are horizontal, it’s time to sleep.
6. Your bed is only where you sleep aka your body gets the same cue as above. It’s time to sleep.
7. Blackout curtains to keep the room extremely dark. Light even on the skin gives signals that you should be awake.
8. No watching TV in the bedroom. Stimulates receptors in eyes/brains to keep you awake.
9. Limit phone/iPad screen time before bed (especially in dark rooms (aka in your bed)).
10. Let your mind wander when trying to fall asleep. Sleep is subconscious. You cannot actively fall asleep. The “I need to fall asleep right now” mindset is keeping you awake.
11. A loud fan or some form of white noise. I can’t fall asleep in a quiet room.
12. Be careful of too much water before bed (or food but that isn’t the case for me).
13. Exercise earlier in the day (not too close to bed). This will help with natural melatonin production.
14. Caffeine (I do zero caffeine after noon). This will ensure it’s all worn off by the time you go to bed.
15. Supplements. I only take magnesium glycinate before bed. That’s more for recovery than it is for sleep.

Like I said, this is a surface-level bullet point checklist.

If you would like to see the full breakdown in great detail of each bullet point, let me know.

Serving Surprise 😮

This week's serving surprise is talking about my goals for breakfast. And by goals, I mean the calorie/macronutrient breakdown to set me up for a successful day. I like to have breakfast because it allows me to avoid the slippery slope of hunger. Intermittent fasting is cool for some but I personally found that, once I get a certain level of hunger, it requires an absurd amount of food to tackle that hunger. Aka much bigger than the breakfast and lunch combined. For context, I eat 3 meals per day along with a pre-workout snack of about 150-200 calories of fruit.

I don’t track macros but given I tracked for 10 years, I am good at self-moderating my intake.

So this meal is:

This may seem like a lot to some but for needing to eat about 2900 calories to maintain my weight, this is perfect.

For context, that’s only 23% of my calories.

Light enough to where I feel satisfied, but not doesn’t slow me down aka make me feel “full.”

My lunch is a bit bigger and then my dinner is the biggest meal.

Let me know if you’d like to see a full day of eating.

More than happy to share that with you guys 😁

The 17th Edition of the Macro Friendly Kitchen is in the bag!

I hope you learned something new.

I really enjoy putting these together so I just wanted to say thank you so much for the support.

We are now 46,905 strong in this Macro Friendly Kitchen community.

This is what I wish I had access to when first starting 12 years ago and it’s really cool to see how big this community has grown in such a short period of time.

I hope you have an amazing week ahead my friend!

Much love and happy cooking,​
Zach

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